A CHORUS LINE – Every age of dancer and many styles of dance appear in this photo from last December’s “Dancing for a Cure.”

Cape women take steps to raise funds and awareness

CORRECTED

Sipping coffee and enjoying some indulgent “ands” to go with it, they discuss daughters and dance.

They also, just as openly, talk about breast cancer.

These women are some of the members of the committee that plans “Dancing for a Cure,” a December event that raises money to support breast and ovarian cancer research. They all have a connection to the Dance Designs studio in Hyannis; in fact, one, Susan Mendoza Friedman of Cotuit, owns the school.

In 2009, even though it occurred during the weekend of the Dec. 20 blizzard, the two performances of “Dancing for a Cure (DFAC)” raised about $20,000. The whole amount was given to The Friends of the Dana Farber Cancer Center in Boston.

Friedman was joined at the breakfast gathering by Marybeth Campbell of West Hyannisport; Jennifer Rako of Chatham; and Jill Snook of Centerville, whose daughters study at Dance Designs. Another committee member, Celeste Reynolds of Sandwich, sent a statement by e-mail.

DFAC began in 2006 when mothers of students, chatting as their children danced, discovered that three of them were in cancer treatment – this in a school of about 150 families.

“So [the school] put up a notice in the waiting area” about a possible fundraiser,” said Friedman, whose father died of cancer when she was an infant. “And it snowballed from there.”

For the first two years, organizers had to cram 100 folding chairs into the Dance Design studio to accommodate the audience. After that, they decided to move to Barnstable High School.

Interest in DFAC has never lagged, said Friedman, because “every year another mother” of a Dance Designs student is diagnosed with cancer. In some way, Friedman said, “everybody at the studio has been touched by cancer.”

All the women spoke about a community spirit at the dance school – such as meals and transportation – when someone is in treatment. Reynolds wrote of support from the Dance Design mothers, “I barely knew these incredible women, they were not my best friends, but they gathered around me…and said we are here to support you…and they did.”

Her 10-year-old daughter, Reynolds continued, “is so proud to have been part of ‘Dancing for a Cure’ because she knows it is helping someone like her mom.”

Snook called DFAC “a healing tool” because it supports research and it helps the people who live with cancer. She said that children like her 12-year-old daughter could learn that breast cancer is often curable: “They can see mom in a scarf for a year. Then she’s back to herself.”

Campbell added that children also see that “you meet people” at the dance school or the doctor’s office. And that some of those people will become part of your support system.

The women of the DFAC emphasized that 100 percent of the money they raise from the performance and from raffles and sales goes to The Friends of the Dana Farber Cancer Center. “The studio makes nothing on this,” said parent, survivor, and committee member Jill Snook.

Exactly how does one dance for a cure for cancer?

“We always include adult tappers,” said Friedman with a smile. Also, she said, “there is lyrical dance, which is driven by the lyrics of a song and is very emotional. It speaks of friendship, hope, strength, camaraderie, specialness.”

There are dances, Friedman continued, that use the colors teal and pink. A yearly tradition now is a “memory scarf” in those colors that some of the dancers weave into their numbers.

Another tradition now at DFAC is a guest speaker, and this year’s was Jennifer Rako, mother of a Dance Designs student. A month before DFAC, Rako, 46, had found out through a routine mammogram that she had become “a member of the club no woman wants to join,” as she put it, and just three days before her daughter danced in the performance Rako had a lumpectomy.

Just at that time, some in the medical profession recommended that women in the 40s not have mammograms. “I don’t want to think about what would have happened if I’d waited until age 50 for my first screening,” Rako told the audience, according to a copy of her remarks.

As this article goes to press, Rako, who came to Hyannis from Chatham during the Dec. 20 to speak at “Dancing for a Cure,” is scheduled to begin chemotherapy. The women seated at the table with her spoke of their plans to stand by her.

The 2010 “Dancing for a Cure” is scheduled for Dec. 18 and 19 at Barnstable High School. Volunteers and additional fundraising ideas are welcome. More information is available at Dancingforacure.net or Dancedesignshyannis.com. These sites link to the Dana Farber Cancer Center.

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